


Whispers

by Simply_Isnt_On



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Kid!Fic, Minor Character Death, Telepathy, WIP, mention of parental angst, will add tags as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-17 15:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Simply_Isnt_On/pseuds/Simply_Isnt_On
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John didn't understand why some were easier to tune into, but he did know that the more people he heard, the harder it would be to concentrate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fingerprints

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress. I may not finish, and I really only have a tiny bit of foresight into where this is going. I hope you like it. :D

It started when he was seven. His parents were out that evening, and Harriet was babysitting. He'd learned about fingerprints that day in school, and when he'd examined each and every one of his own (and his toe prints too), he'd walked downstairs, ink-stained hands clasped behind his back, and stood beside Harry, waiting for her to come out of her book enough to notice him. It didn't take long- Harry heard the clock strike a moment later and glanced up. 

"How long have you been standing there?" she asked, setting her book aside. John shrugged and explained about the fingerprints, and Harry laughed. "I supose you want to see mine, too, then?" John nodded hopefully and she ruffled his hair and led him over to the window for better light before offering her right hand, palm up.

John grasped it eagerly and began to run his fingers gently along the lines of her palm, the pads of her fingers, the clean lines of her nails. Dimly, as he lost himself in the patterns and pale scars of Harry's hand, he heard her mumble "I really should be doing homework..."

He ignored it and moved on to her left hand, noting the irregularities, tracing the veins beneath the skin of her wrist. It was only when she mumbled something about a crush that John looked up. "What?" Harry frowned and pulled her hands away. 

"I didn't say anything," she protested. John was about to argue when he heard her comment, with an almost idle tone, "Maybe he's hearing things." But her lips never moved. John stared, then shook his head.

"Never mind," he muttered, and walked away. 

***

It was intimacy, John soon learned, that triggered it. The intensity with which he'd studied Harry's hands had triggered something, linking them so that John could hear every thought that flitted through her head. It wasn't too bad- in fact, it was rather like a radio station. As long as he didn't think to much abut anything involving Harry, he didn't really hear anything but dull gray.

The first time it didn't work that way was the day Harry was called 'dyke'. The flash of molten anger and hurt, mixed with self-hate and unsureness, tore John away from the maths sheet he'd been working on. His teacher tried to ask him what the matter was, but he simply grabbed the bathroom pass and ran.

Locked in a stall in the empty bathroom, he tried to figure out what had happened. He hadn't sought Harry out, it had just happened, and he could still feel the flow of mixed emotion from his sister. Clearly, the person who'd called the name hadn't even realied she'd heard, and from what John can tell, Harry had simply kept walking, made no move to retaliate.

Carefully, as though it were hot to the touch, John pushed her mind away from his own thoughts. Harry wasn't even in his school anymore- she was eleven and in her first year of secondary, and John still had almost four years to go until they would be in the same school again. He couldn't do anything for her now, so he grabbed the pass and headed back to class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this on a kindle keyboard at three am, so please excuse the typos.


	2. Who said it was easy?

He doesn't try to be close to people, after that. Living with Harry, watching her slowly sink into confusion about herself, about the way she watches girls when the other girls watch boys, and the way she begins to draw away from everyone around her, it's so hard for John to keep himself from saying something to her. Saying she'll be alright, maybe. Saying it's okay to like girls. He knows she wouldn't appreciate it, so he bites his lip and does his best to be accepting around her.  
  
Two years later, his father threatens divorce after a particularly bad fight. His mother breaks down as she's kissing him goodnight and sobs on his shoulder, and after that he can hear her as well. Knowing what's happening in both her and Harry's heads is terrifying, and it's harder to decide to hear just Harry or just his mother. He manages it, however, and discovers when he goes to the seaside with his uncle and Harry that distance makes it harder to hear either of them. John takes a small sailboat out a few miles from shore alone, and for the first time in a long time all is silent.  
  
He spends a lot of time out of the house after that. The library becomes his haunt, and by the third year in secondary, he's discovered the anatomy texts. He has to share them with the med students on holiday, but he reads all he can, enchanted by the beauty and complexity of the human body.  
  
John's first girlfriend kisses him behind the school building during fourth period, and he steadfastly does not think about what's happening until he's watching her walk away with a cheeky grin. He managed to avoid hearing her thoughts, and he's glad that he has some control over it now. She's the closest John had been to any one person since his mother moved out.  
   
Three months later, his father dies in a car crash.


	3. A Funeral (or Two)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a funeral, some good news, and more bad news.

The funeral was terrible- both Harry and his mum were torn with guilt and sorrow, the guilt because they were glad he was gone, and with John positioned securely between them, he couldn't block them out. Eventually he started crying because of the stress of their grief, and then his mum hugged him, which made him sob harder from the touch. The few people who had come touched his shoulder and squeezed his hand and offered sympathy, but he shook it off with a sympathetic smile. Later his mum commented on his sincerity, and he had to hide a snort.

He knew no one would cry themselves to sleep tonight.

It’s several weeks before Mark Watson’s life insurance comes in, but when John’s mum opens it she has to sit down, hard. The money that they’d thought he was drinking away had apparently been piling up in an insurance policy, and that night Marie Watson did cry, for all the fights they’d had and the times she’d pushed him away. John heard every flicker of thought from upstairs, until he pulled out a copy of Gray’s Anatomy and began to study the bones of the hand.

The next morning his mum stopped him on the way out the door and said “John, if you want to be a doctor, you can. Harry’s already moved out, and there’s no need for this house when you’re gone.” John laughed. He couldn’t believe it, he’d never imagined he’d be able to go to med school. He’d squashed it when it was only an inkling, but now he allowed his dream to take root and grow. John Watson was going to be a doctor.

***

Med school is not easy. It’s not easy to anesthetize people, it’s not easy to hope not to meet again because doing a mock-physical is sometimes enough to show John people’s thoughts. He learns to control it, to think strictly of the pages of his medical textbooks as he palpates abdomens and massages necks. Sometimes, he gets an inkling of thoughts and he pounces, shutting it off as quickly as he can. He’s severed quite a few connections like that, and it makes insincere patient smiles and casual dating just that much easier.

When his mum dies, he’s already considering the military. He goes home for her funeral, and reads a eulogy about what a wonderful, sweet woman she was, and strains to find her thoughts among the people who watch him. He only finds Harry, her longing for a martini and the way her throat tightens each time she glances at the casket. John summons a few tears and finishes his speech, guides her away from the bar at the reception and tells her he’s taking her home.

The next day he tells her he’s joining the military, and she shrieks at him till her voice is raw, but he can’t hear it. All John can hear is her voice in his head, unable to bear the thought of him dying. He promises not to die, hugs her, and closes the door to her flat on the sound of her sobbing.

***

For a time, the desert is empty of any thought but John’s own. He’s on base first, training to withstand the heat, pairing it with the weight on his back and the effacing of his own self. When he hears a comrade’s thoughts, it’s not a shock, because here in this place, John Watson has ceased to exist as a separate whole

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to formally apologize for letting this one get lost in the detritus. I don't really know when or why I lost it, but two years is far too long. Rest assured, unlike the other multi-chaps I've let down, I still know exactly where this piece is going, and I hope to get the rest up as soon as I can.


	4. For To Give You No Pain

It is in the desert that John dies. By now he can get by without blocking minds out, because there are simply too many of them to filter all at once. He grows to enjoy the steady mix of consciousnesses, learns to pick out exactly the right one to lead him back to injured soldiers, learns to know when he has found the damage, helps to heal them.

It is a young man called Rob who first dies under John’s hands. He is trying to stuff the wound, staunch it with cotton and press the blood back into his body, but the bullet hit his lung and he is choking on blood. John is calling for help, shouting for people to get their asses over here, goddammit- when Rob's mind becomes a high whine, white static scraping at John’s mind before wrenching away. John screams and jerks back, narrowly missing a bullet fired at an unguarded doctor.

At base, Dr. Talbot gives him a mug of whiskey and shakes his head, frowning behind his mustache. “People die, Watson. We’re here to prevent it, but you’re gonna fail. Get used to it.” John doesn’t sleep that night, and the next day he loses two more men on the battlefield. He can’t stop the tears that come with each death, but he doesn’t stop because of them, following his comrades back onto the field, mindful of the armband which declares him medical personnel to the people shooting at him and his friends, his family.

John learns to sever connections with people who are dying, just before they die. Sometimes he misses, but more and more often he sets minds adrift just before they flicker and go silent. He begins to notice, when it’s 3 AM and he’s working in the hospital and someone is about to die, that minds have color. They glow and flicker, like multicolored flames. Occasionally John will come across someone with a mind map, but it’s usually wrong and he learns to ignore it.

Having his mind braided into those of his comrades means that when he is bent over men screaming in agony, sweat dripping down his hairline and into his collar, he can tell them that their sister is waiting for them, of course they’ll heal and get back to school, maybe, yes someday she’ll return his calls. He can’t tell if any of it is true, but it makes them feel better, and it seems to lessen their pain as they flicker out, or dip into unconsciousness, or fight off shock.

Battlefield injuries mix up already messy minds, so it’s hard to find, but no matter the person, some things stick out. Who they love, what they love, it shines through the entropy of thought, lined in gold. Sometimes they are draped with other memories or thoughts, these men’s treasures, but always they are larger than life, enhanced by the things that cocoon them. John does his best to give them that love back, to give them hope as they die. He tells them they’re going to sleep. He lies to them. At least that way, they are not afraid.


End file.
